Tuesday

After deadly releases on Idle Hands and Horizontal Ground, our most substantial slice of Alex Coulton so far lands on Hypercolour's vinyl only imprint; a strong first statement that comes hot on the heels of their justly deserved gong at the DJ Mag awards. 'Dance, Max' does what you'd expect, driving dark melodic stabs and woodblock percussion push through 7 minutes of precise dancefloor engineering. It's pretty functional stuff but with a gauzy synth-laden breakdown that hints there's a bit more going on upstairs.

'Submerged' takes me back, all the way back to 2008-2009 when Hotflush and Apple Pips were churning out these tucked techno x bass rollers. Coulton's take on the sound is beautifully executed with layered, reverbed dub chords and some restrained bass pressure.

On the flip, 'Function' is a skewed dark house number with swung high-ends, plenty of kick, clamoring percussion and those stabs that are starting to become Coulton's calling card. But outsider pick of the lot is 'Fade Realization', a chopped and screwed number somewhere between Autonomic and Arkist working with a heady combo of heart-stopping reverse washes, echoing chords and lean clipped rhythms.